Alba caught Louis of Nassau's army pinned against the Ems with its back to the water and destroyed it. The rebel force was cut down or drowned trying to swim the river; contemporaries put Dutch dead at 7,000 against a handful of Spanish. Louis escaped by swimming. It was less a battle than an execution.
Jemmingen demonstrated the plain truth that governed the next eighty years: in open field battle, the Spanish tercios were the finest infantry in the world and the Dutch could not beat them. Every subsequent Dutch strategy — flooding the land, fortifying the cities, fighting from behind water — was an answer to this day. Alba had crushed the revolt in a single summer, and it made him overconfident.
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The most bitterly contested battle of the First Opium War. British forces stormed Chinkiang (Zhenjiang), defended by a Manchu garrison that chose mass death over surrender — more than 1,000 Manchu soldiers and family members died in the fighting or took their own lives. The battle severed the Grand Canal at its Yangtze crossing, immediately threatening to cut Beijing's food supply and forcing the Qing court to accept negotiations.
Cutting the Grand Canal at Chinkiang was the decisive strategic stroke — more than any defeat in battle, threatening Beijing's food supply convinced the Qing emperor that further resistance was suicidal.
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The first major land battle of the war shocked Washington spectators who came to watch what they expected to be a quick Union victory. Confederate forces under Beauregard and Jackson routed the Union army, which retreated to Washington in chaos.
Shattered Northern hopes for a quick war. Stonewall Jackson earned his famous nickname here. Lincoln replaced McDowell with McClellan.
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In just over an hour, the Provisional IRA detonated around twenty bombs across Belfast, killing nine people — including civilians and two soldiers — and injuring 130 in scenes of carnage that shocked the province. The bombings overwhelmed the emergency services and left body parts scattered across the city.
Bloody Friday demonstrated the IRA's capacity for mass destruction and horrified public opinion on all sides; it provided the justification for the British Army's massive Operation Motorman days later.
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